All hands on deck

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community, Monastic Life 2 Comments

One of the articles written about Holy Wisdom Monastery describes the striking angles of the new green-designed building built in 2009, calling to mind a ship rising upon the prairie. When I returned from the holiday break, it was “all hands on deck” for the sisters, coworkers, sojourners and many volunteers. From January 2-15 of the new year Holy Wisdom Monastery was providing Benedictine hospitality to a five-day Tergar Buddhist Retreat with 85 people attending, a winter writing group of 15 people, 100 people participating in a Center for Mindfulness and Justice meditation retreat, and three-day meetings of the Wisconsin …

Hope beyond hope

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community, Monastic Life Leave a Comment

This is the season of deep yearning. Longing for a savior, home, justice and peace. Tears have welled up in my eyes more than once as I listen to this month’s scripture readings at community daily prayer and at Sunday Assembly, our ecumenical liturgy. The prophet Isaiah paints such a vivid and vibrant vision of a world redeemed, a divine promise realized: healing and wholeness, forgiveness and reconciliation, a dispirited people gladdened, a way made clear through the wilderness, nations putting down weapons, persecution no more. A great light appears in the darkness, all the earth rejoices; a spirit of …

A Song of Praise

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community, Monastic Life Leave a Comment

    Joyous light of heav’nly glory,  loving glow of God’s own face,  you who sing creation’s story,  shine on ev’ry land and race…   ~ text by Marty Haugen,from Joyous Light of Heavenly Glory, one of the many hymns of praise sung during Liturgy of the Hours at Holy Wisdom Monastery Situated in a sweep of prairie on a hill between the monastery building and our little recovered glacial lake is this grand old willow tree. Its expanse reaches out to the driveway of the monastery, a couple walking trails, and a little meditation deck. It can be seen from …

Out there in faith

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community, Monastic Life 2 Comments

Another Benedictine Sojourner and I are reflecting on the movie, Gravity, and how it spins with our life at Holy Wisdom Monastery. The basic plot conveys both the exhilaration and perils of space exploration. One line in the film pierces my sense of self: “You have to learn to let go.” (See my last blog post.) We muse on the breathless, frightening scene when medical engineer Ryan Stone becomes disconnected from the space shuttle and is hurled through the darkness of deep space. Though unmoored, Ryan’s spacesuit provides some measure of protection and stability. Where am I finding protection and …

Profound Trust

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community, Monastic Life 6 Comments

This morning over Lost Lake on the monastery grounds I see the full moon in the sunlight of day. As if that isn’t enough to stop me for a moment, just then a flock of little black birds rustles free from the treetops and flies right across that moon. Another flock comes from a different direction, and then a third no less, dotting the sky with flapping wonder. It is LaGuardia Airport but softer, a symphony of wings. Though earthbound, I am lifted. I need that. I am feeling heavy laden. Sometimes that’s just the way it is for me, …

Finding One’s Center

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community, Monastic Life Leave a Comment

A lot is going on. Apple picking, to start. We’re harvesting about 200 bushels compared to 27 last year.  Then there is prairie seed collection for a new restoration project next year. As with the apples, sojourners are helping to coordinate volunteers in this small fall window of seed harvest. We are also putting the garden to bed – gathering the last crops of butternut squash and greens, removing and straightening tomato cages for storage, pulling out the woody stalks of spent plants and making ready for a winter cover of rye. In addition, the monastery is hosting a number …

Let Go, Make Room

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community 2 Comments

It is September, and as our sojourner community continues to grow, the monastery prairie again beckons me to come and see and learn from its cycle of being. The long light of summer has fallen from the sky and has stained the landscape a muted golden brown. The chorus of birdsongs has taken flight to some warmer winter home. The towering plants now bend toward the deep from which they come. All is stilling, quieting, making way for another season. I too am feeling a desire to quiet down, be still and move inward. My extroverted energy is waning (for …

The Humming of the Hive

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community 1 Comment

Here I am peering into the hive of an estimated 50,000 bees. As if this is just a normal part of a Benedictine Sojourner’s day. It’s not, but Sister Lynne, two other Sojourners and I are interested in seeing and understanding more of what goes on with bees. Beekeeper Peter Normandt is thrilled to share with us his labor of love – he so enjoys looking after the movable comb hive. We learn a lot about the wonderful symbiotic relationship between the bees and their environment. Under normal conditions, the prairie’s wide variety of plant life offers the bees an …

Weeding, Watering and Harvesting

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community Leave a Comment

I spend a lot of my days in the vegetable garden. It is a good teacher. Some days I weed and that’s that – I am simply present to the plants right in front of me. A wonderful practice of learning to pay attention, I find. Some days this practice of being in the present moment unexpectedly calls attention to some weeding that wants to happen in me. It is as if from somewhere in the deep ground of my being a little more sun wants to give something in my life more clarity or purification. Good, and challenging… One …

Living Day to Day

Trish StefanikA Benedictine Sojourner's View, Living in Community 2 Comments

Summer days at the monastery (l-r, top to bottom): work in the prairie, gathering for prayer in the oratory, time for solitude and mediation, for study, and for shared meals The monastery is quite a lively place this summer with volunteers as well as two visiting women religious from Spain living with us in community! This group, varying in numbers over the last two months, joined the sisters in the daily life of the monastery which is a rich flow of diversity and energy. Weekly volunteers join coworkers in the monastery building or on the grounds. Neighbors and oblates come for daily …